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"Meritocracy" was first used in a dystopian, satirical book. That whole concept is severely busted. The ancient Greeks knew some part of success was just luck
by analognoise 4y ago
"Meritocracy" was first used in a dystopian, satirical book.
That whole concept is severely busted. The ancient Greeks knew some part of success was just luck - I have no idea why these ideas which started off being used as a joke, or a dystopian pejorative term, got taken seriously.
"Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is another - try it. It's physically impossible! The term started as a JOKE.
But there's this sector of people who honestly believe their success says something about them, but they give nothing back to their community and offer nothing to Luck.
Wild.
- acdha 4y agoWhenever something seems off like that I usually try to follow the money to see who profits from it. In this case, I’m partial to the explanation that it stems back to business opposition to the New Deal pushing a lot of money into promoting libertarian Christianity, with one of the bedrock principles being that the world is just and therefore someone rich must have deserved it in some way. Kevin Kruse wrote a book about that a few years ago and anyone familiar with American politics or religion will recognize a lot of the people involved: http://kevinmkruse.com/book/one-nation-under-god/ http://kevinmkruse.com/book/one-nation-under-god/